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StoryRhyme After Dark: The Wedding Cake Couple

If you enjoy this short story, be sure to visit our Harry Buschman Library for more tales of whimsy and wisdom.

The Wedding Cake CoupleBy Harry Buschman

On the top tier of every wedding cake a patient miniature bride and groom stand stiffly at attention. While the dining and dancing goes on––while the band plays the loving couple’s favorite song and the father dances with the daughter and the mother dances with the son, and the father of the son and the mother of the daughter look down with disfavor on one another––each thinking their son or daughter could have married much better then they did ... the miniature bride and groom atop the wedding cake wait patiently for the knife to fall.

Before it falls, they will be removed and put on a shelf in the kitchen of Paradise Caterers until the next wedding reception. That may be tomorrow or the day after... Or who knows? There may not be another one for a very, very long time.

So what do they do with themselves? They feel married to each other. As a matter of fact, (unlike real newlyweds) they are joined porcelain figures and cannot be separated. But they have never been on a honeymoon. They have never left the kitchen of Paradise Caterers, except to stand on the top of a wedding cake before it is sliced and served to the guests.

They often wonder what their own wedding day might be like. Would they fly together to romantic places like Boca Raton or Rio, or would they lease a car from Rent-A-Wreck and drive to Camden, New Jersey where they were manufactured? In either case they are eager to give it a whirl. They are willing to come down off that three or four tiered sugar frosted creation from the kitchen of Paradise Caterers and face married life unafraid. They may not know the way to Boca Raton––they may get lost on a deserted country road––they may run out of money, or get mugged in Camden, New Jersey, but they don’t care!

They have as much of a chance for happiness as people do, maybe more... Deep down they feel they are inseparable.